“Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday to discuss the fate of Assessor John Noguez, but did not remove him from office and will allow him to continue receiving his $197,000 salary while he’s in jail.”

Huh??? I had to read some more of the article, but here are the main points:

1) Noguez, who was elected assessor in 2010.

2) Noguez has been in jail since mid-October.

3) Noguez is charged with taking $185,000 in bribes from a tax consultant — and campaign fundraiser — to lower property taxes for his clients.

4) While on leave, he got a cost-of-living raise in July, boosting his annual salary from $192,000 to $197,000.

Here is a quote from the article:

“Elected officials in California typically can’t be removed from office unless they are convicted of a job-related crime or voted out in a recall.”

OK, I can understand that, I mean if you were in “politics”, one of your enemies could get you falsely charged. I don’t want anyone to lose their job just because they have been charged.

BUT, here is where I have a problem. THIS GUY IS STILL GETTING PAID…..to do NOTHING related to his JOB for AT LEAST 6 months and COUNTING!!!

And people wonder why California is going BANKRUPT?!!

I’ll leave you with another quote, my highlights:

“Noguez, who was elected assessor in 2010, has not worked since June, when he placed himself on paid leave of absence to concentrate on preparing a legal defense to the corruption allegations swirling around him.”

P.S. – I am going to place myself on “paid leave of absence”, do you think my employer will go for that???

What??? This guy manages a TOWN of 5,000 people and is paid how much???

“The town of Indian Wells near Palm Springs in Riverside County, 120 miles (199 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, granted former city manager Greg Johnson $230,697 in salary and another $446,475 in “other pay” according to the data released yesterday. The other pay was a severance package.”

Are reporters and their Media Masters either 1) Completely LAZY OR 2) Completely INCOMPETENT OR 3) Can they possibly be this lacking in MORALS, and EVIL, that they have no problem LYING OUTRIGHT to the American People in order to push an AGENDA??

I guess I am to much of an optimist and trusting in the good will of others that I seriously have a difficult time believing that the answer is Number 3!!! I mean, the collaboration, that this requires of everyone involved is amazing. IF it is true, just imagine what they could do, working together like this, on a worthy goal!!!

Why am I asking a question with only these possible answers, you ask?? The following are articles from this morning:

And there are MANY, MANY more of these articles. Go ahead and search “GM buys back government shares”, there are already over 500,000 links!!!

“That sounds like a good deal to me”, you say, “I don’t want my government owning one of the largest manufacturers on the planet”. “So, what’s wrong??”

Here is a line (or variation) that is in ALL of the articles:

“GM received about $50 billion from the U.S. Treasury as part of its 2009 bankruptcy restructuring in 2009 under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).”

YES, this statement is TRUE!!! BUT….That is NOT the WHOLE STORY!!! Here is another line:

“The deal will raise the proceeds Treasury has recovered to $28.6 billion. That leaves $20.9 billion left on the original bailout amount.”

And here is where it gets a little tricky!!! You see that word, ORIGINAL?? Or that, “GM received about $50 Billion from TARP”?? That is NOT ALL THAT THEY RECEIVED!!! They ALSO received ZERO TO VERY LOW (below market rates by FACTORS) loans in order to make the first repayments. And some of those “loans were written off!!! In other words, the Government gave GM a “loan” so it could repay the payoff “Bailout”, and THEN, the government told GM that they didn’t need to repay the “loan”. And don’t forget the $45.4 BILLION that WE gave to GM in order to cover future tax payments!! IF they ever truly make a profit!!!

Also, something that used to be done in business is a calculation concerning time value of money. To keep this simple, let’s just use $50 BILLION that we gave them. And let’s assume a 5% yearly return (many treasury bonds pay more than this). We bailed them out in 2008, it is now the end of 2012, so let’s say 3 years, just to keep it simple. Year 1 the interest would be $50 Billion * 1.05 =$52.5 Billion. Year 2 =$55.125 Billion. And year 3 =$57.9 BILLION. And the interest is not done yet….

So, to sum it all up: IF the Government sold ALL of it’s shares today the Bailout of Government Union Workers would cost US AT LEAST $55 BILLION, NOT INCLUDING INTEREST!!! We’ll see what the final cost (IT WILL BE A COST, no amount of “creative accounting” will be able to show this as a “profit”) is in future years.

Which brings me back to my original question: Are they LAZY, INCOMPETENT, OR EVIL??